The present invention is directed toward a foam hybrid buffing pad for use with a rotary buffing machine for high speed polishing of automobiles, boats, planes, furniture, marble and other surfaces and more particularly, toward a foam buffing pad with wool or other natural or synthetic fibers interspersed throughout and extending passed or exposed at the working surface of the pad.
Buffing pads for use in high speed polishing of automobiles and the like may be one-sided or two-sided. A one-sided buffing pad is typically circular and is attached to a rigid circular backing plate which is attached by a central hub to the shaft of a rotary power buffer. The pad may be permanently attached to the backing plate or releasably attached thereto in order to allow for replacement without disposing of the backing plate.
A two-sided pad includes a buffing pad attached to each face of a rigid backing plate. The plate includes a hub for releasably attaching the pad to the drive shaft or spindle of a high speed buffing motor. The pad may be attached to the motor from either side of the pad, thereby allowing the pad to be reversed after one side has been used.
Typically, such buffing pads are made from tufted wool or from other natural or synthetic fibers. It is also well known to make such pads from a foam material, for example, open cell polyurethane foam. There are, however, certain disadvantages to using either the foam pads or the tufted wool pads.
For example, wool pads frequently lint. That is, during buffing and/or cleaning with a spur the twisted yarns become untwisted and break free from the pad. In body shops this presents a real problem with possible paint contamination, and in a detail shop it is a nuisance and a health hazard as the airborne fibers can be inhaled. Wool is also very aggressive. Wool pads have become notorious with swirl marks and an inexperienced operator can easily burn paint with a wool pad. During buffing the wool pad also can become saturated with compounds and polish becoming a flat hard surface which becomes very aggressive and can also burn the paint off the surface.
Foam was created to solve the major shortcomings of wool. Foam pads do not lint at all and are as easy to clean as a sponge. In addition, an open cell foam material reduces swirl marks and its flexible sponge structure absorbs the compound and polish without becoming a hard aggressive surface prone to burning. One drawback, however, is that foam pads cannot remove deep scratches, wet sand marks, and heavy oxidation as well as wool and certainly not as quickly.
A need exists for a buffing pad that combines the aggressiveness of a wool pad with the ease of cleaning of a foam pad while decreasing the disadvantages of such pads.